Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Worlds Below
by Telltale-Soul
Summary: Laurel a hypoglycemic student struggling to understand the world, Her relatively hunky brother, A pair of girls in love with each other, mysterious ramblings from Master Splinter yet to come, and four turtles plagued by unseen and ruthless foes abound!
1. 1: Life Before

Fog falls heavy on the early morning city, and frost clings to the high reaches of those privileged silver gleaming high rises. No cleansing silver frost has settled on the broken rotting brownstones of the slums, but the citizens are not perturbed. They continue about their myriad affairs. Eating, sleeping, loving, dying, and unaware of the other lives that surround them. The unknown citizens, the sewer dwellers.

Like the rest of the "surface dwellers" cliché though the name may be, Laurel was convinced that the what she saw daily and what was drummed into her head each time she sat through one of Professor Brook's lectures on applied logic, was the empirical truth. There are no 'other worlds', there are no phantoms, no unexplainable events, no spiritual planes. All of life is facts and science and evolution and repetition and decay.

And somehow, Laurel found this outlook on life unfulfilling.

**1**

**Life Before**

Her tiny apartment is cold and it is furnished with only a few books, boxes of comic books, a bed with threadbare sheets and a large cage where Samson, her beloved only friend, a common garden hedgehog sleeps most of the day. She is sitting on the bed, wrapped in layers of ancient sweaters and second hand blankets, reading the newest issue of _Ultimate Avengers_, thoroughly disappointed with the introduction of the female Vision. It seems to her that females in comic books or any popular fiction are often somehow vaguely shallow, even robotic ones. It's a shame. There is so much potential in the character of the female psyche. Or at least that's what Miss Mahanoy, her Woman Studies prof is always saying. She sighs, finishes the book, and goes to the kitchenette literally three steps away from her bed. The micro waved noodles she makes taste hot, but without any discernable flavour. She is feeling very, very low. Although it is seldom that she ever feels anything more than mediocre. She feels the sudden need to medicate herself with an issue of _Bone_, or perhaps some shoujo, something light and airy to lift this heavy fog of inexplicable depression that has been clinging to her shoulders for two years now. She grabs a thickly insulated windbreaker, says "See you soon," to Samson's sleeping, prickling back, and heads down the filthy stairwell of her cut-rate apartment block. She heads to the warm light of the comic shop a few blocks away, pulling her hood close against the icy seeping fog. She walks in, assailed with light, warmth, and the sounds of a raucous tabletop Rpg in the backroom.

"Hey, Laurie." Says the large goateed man behind the glass counter. He is typing something on the curiously high-tech computer system, presumably looking up back-issue prices. "Two times in one day? It's not a record, but…" He trails off gawking at something on the unseen screen.

"I'd like…" She begins quietly, barely hearing herself above the shouts of the concealed gamers.

"Let me guess… You just read that _Avengers_ right? You'll need a pick me up." He cuts her off, guessing exactly what she needs, "How about this?" he pulls a thin monthly issue from under the counter, it's plastic wrap sending up a glare under the fluorescent lights.

"It's a zero issue, reserved press copy, but for some reason I got more than I need. They're doing a reprint of _The Frogmen. _It's the sorta thing you like, right?" She takes the book from him, studying the cover. It's a new edition of her favourite comic book as a kid. She feels nostalgic, anxious to get home and tear open the plastic, sink into her old happiness.

"This is great, Sandy. I can't believe they're starting up this old franchise again after so long." She smiles at him, possibly for the first time ever, and hands him more money than a monthly issue should be worth. But she doesn't care. _The Frogmen_, she can barely believe that it's being printed again. She walks the blocks home, clutching the cheap teal plastic bag to her heart, a warm glow in her cheeks, burning the close fog away.

And then in the distance, near her apartment, outlined in the fuzzy sodium glow of mist enshrouded street lamps she sees four hunched silhouettes moving towards her. And she realizes how very late it really is and how very helpless she is. She freezes, an unwise decision, but she does. And the shadows move in.


	2. 2: Life During

Disclaimer: The Teenage Mutant Turtles are not my property, and I don't purport to own them one bit.

**2**

**Life During**

Laurel should not be concentrating on the four rather lumpily trench coated figures ahead of her but on the two thugs who have been trailing her since she walked out of the comics shop. They are two rather well known thugs; having made names for themselves doing the sort of errands no one else wants a part of. One is tall and round and dumb, the other is small and skinny and marginally smarter, the usual cliché pairing of partners. Tonight, though, they have no errands pending and had been rather thrilled to see a plain but jumpable looking young woman come out of "that geeky readin' place" across the street from the seedy bar they haunted when conscious.

The smaller of the thugs reaches out to grab the shoulder of Laurel's vaguely down filled jacket, and she turns not expecting him to be there, and certainly not expecting two dirty dishevelled and leering men to be standing over her. But they are and one has his hand very tightly clamped on her shoulder. She tries to push away but the other now has her arm pinned against her side and she can't move. There is no time to cry out, they are whispering lewd things to her and she will be…

Her copy of _The Frogmen_ tumbles to the ground, falling slowly like a dead leaf, coming to rest in a gutter.

There is a sudden flash of brown and green and… blue? And her arm is free, her shoulder untouched. The thugs are being kicked down the street to a chorus of "Get outta her face!" and "Bug off!" and "You damn dirty humans!" There is a face, obscured by shadows and a wide brimmed dark brown hat, a respectful distance away and it is asking whether she is all right. She nods, her short straight hair falling in her face, being dampened by the mist and she is unsure of what is supposed to happen next. Should she thank these four, verbal and rather violent knights in trench coats?

One of them sees her copy of _The Frogmen_, lying forlorn and forgotten on the side of the road, and picks it up, exclaiming, "Man, I love this comic! This is such a bad rip-off of us!" He begins pointing to each of the four main characters emblazoned in garish ink on the cover. Laurel notices something strange about his hand, but it barely registers. "Look, Angry-Frog is you, Raph. And Leader-Frog is you, Leo. And I'm Handsome-Frog."

Laurel smirks, "There is no Handsome-Frog. You must be Joke-Frog."

"That makes me Geek-Frog, doesn't it?" The fourth figure came back from chasing the thugs down the street, slipping something into his coat.

"Yep. Fits ya too." Comes a voice emanating from the depths of one of the trench coats. He is wearing a red scarf.

"Um, 'scuse me…" Laurel begins, "Who are you?"

The one holding her comic book stumbles for the right words, "We're… uh. We're…um. We're tax collectors?" and fails to find them. There is a brief space of silence and then the sound of three large hands slapping three broad foreheads is heard.

Laurel woke up later, barely even realizing she had been asleep in the first place. She expected to be in the narrow little cot in her narrow little room. But the sounds she heard were not those of Samson's morning stirrings but far-away voices and footsteps. She rolled over, abruptly hitting something cushiony but solid and her eyelids flickered open. She was momentarily blinded by the brightness of the overhead fluorescents, and the blanket that had been covering her slipped off. She felt it being gently pulled back up over her shoulders and she rolled around coming nose to snout with something unusual.

A large and expressive rat's face.

She let out a sound like a clogged drain, sharply taking in her breath, and the face smiled like only a rat's face can. It's deep brown eyes twinkled. A warm but gravely voice came from it's mouth as it said, gently, " Ah. I see you have awakened. Please do not be alarmed, I am Master Splinter."

A brief note: It is very difficult to avoid being alarmed, when someone, especially someone with a very alarming appearance, expressly asks you not to be alarmed.

Laurel discovered this fact, as she sat abruptly up on what turned out to be a marginally tattered sofa, and found herself unable to speak. Thankfully she heard a familiarly in-control voice from a distance, Leader-frog or…

"Leonardo, Could you bring the tea please?" The rat asked. His voice had a soft Japanese accent, which confounded her even further.

"Here you go, Sensei" Leonardo said as he padded quietly over and the relief at hearing a marginally recognizable voice melted from Laurel's mind as she saw who exactly belonged that voice. A turtle. A human sized, incredibly anthropomorphic turtle. He was wearing a blue ribbon-like mask and was carrying a tray of white ceramic mugs, a teapot, and a plate of chocolate cookies. "Are you feeling better?" He poured her a cup of tea adding plenty of milk and sugar. "You passed out up there… everyone was worried. We didn't really know why…" He handed her the cup, and she took it gingerly in both hands, blowing away the steam rising languidly from the tea's milky fawn surface.

"I'm hypoglycemic… if my blood sugar drops way too low, I could faint or… well, there are other symptoms, but I just had some noodles…before I left the apartment. I shouldn't have blacked out like that…" She looked around, craning her neck at the high ceilings. It appeared that she was in a vast, orange-red brick cavern of square angles. There was a sunken patch farther on to the left, with stairs descending about half a foot. A second turtle type person, this one wearing a red mask, was practicing elaborate martial arts moves with a gleaming pair of sai. There were industrial fluorescent fixtures hanging from the high ceiling, brightening up a room otherwise totally devoid of windows. Across from the sofa she sat on was a large television, set to a news channel but muted, and there were a few empty pizza boxes scattered in front of it.

"Could the stress you experienced tonight have affected your condition?" The rat, Master Splinter asked.

"Maybe… probably, but…" She trailed off, unsure of how to politely ask the question that floated in her head.

A voice came from just behind her, and Laurel turned around to see another yet another turtle, leaning against the back of the sofa, his purple bandana-ed face turned to her. "But, you want to where you are, who we are, and why did we bring you here. Right?" He smiled. "I'm Donnatello, that's Leonardo, the broody guy over there is Raphael, and Mikey's nowhere to be found right now. " He reached over the sofa and took a chocolate cookie. "I can tell you've never seen a mutant turtle before. 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's what we are." He munched the cookie, finished chomping away, and continued, "Except Master Splinter's a mutant rat. Strange things happen in the sewers, don't they?" Laurel was speechless, as usual. The fact that she was in the presence of giant, intelligent animals expunged any thoughts of possible danger from her mind. All she could think was: _Imagine if Professor Brook heard about this. His head would explode._

"You're under the city right now, at our place." Continued Leonardo "You fainted and I decided it would be safest if we brought you back here. We didn't know where else to take you." He poured some tea, adding only a little sugar, and handed the mug to Splinter, who nodded to him.

"Thank you." He turned to Laurel, whiskers gently flickering, " I'm sorry if we have frightened you, but now that you're awake, if you're feeling well enough, my sons will escort you home."

"Your… sons?" Images of a thousand crawling, squeaking rats appeared unbidden in her mind, and Laurel shivered.

"He means us," Donnatello explained. "Sensei raised us all, and taught us everything we know. He's our father."

Infinitely relieved, she replied, 'Oh, okay. If you want me to leave, I'll go now." She moved to get up, forgetting the unfinished cup of tea in her hands. It's contents sloshed down onto the blanket covering her knees, creating a creeping dark stain on the afghan knit. "Oh no!" She exclaimed, " I'm so sorry!" She set the cup down on the concrete floor near the sofa, trying to find something to wipe up the tea with.

"It's okay." Both Leo and Donnie said at the same time. They glanced at each other and laughed.

Master Splinter raised himself from the lotus position he had been sitting in and continued, "Please do not be worried. That blanket was in need of a very thorough washing indeed. If it is no trouble, could you wash it with your own things? It is difficult to get to a Laundromat for us, and we do not often have enough things for a full load."

Laurel nodded, "It's only fair, I messed it, I should clean it."

The old rat bowed to her, "My thanks." As he said it, a loud crashing came from above. The smiles on the two turtle's faces fell, and further away, Raphael halted his practice abruptly. Splinter's face hardened from his gentle smile to an inscrutable worried intensity "You should leave now." He ordered.


	3. 3: Life After

(Disclaimer: The Teenage Mutant Turtles are not my property, and I don't purport to own them one bit.)

**3**

**Life After**

Leonardo grabs hold of her left arm, and suddenly Laurel is being pulled down a dank corridor of bricks, the walls occasionally studded with rusty metal ladders reaching to the moss covered ceiling and the world above. She holds the tea-stained blanket to her chest, feeling the alien cold roughness of the turtle's three-fingered hand through her windbreaker. Donnatello follows them behind, holding a long wooden staff at ready. Raphael rushes past them, brushing Laurel's shoulder, and she sees the flash of night-river steel in his fists.

"What's going on?" She asks breathlessly. Michelangelo appears, dropping from an uncovered grate in the ceiling or street, depending on one's point of view. He brushes a streak of mud from his chest and holds up both thumbs grinning, his white teeth reflecting in the gloom. _Turtles have teeth?_ Laurel muses vaguely as Leo and Mikey confer. "Every thing is all right, apparently." Leonardo says turning to the girl whose arm his hand is still resting on. Michelangelo and Donnatello run off as he says so, further up into the damp light of the sewers. Out of sight, out of mind. "And here's your place!" Leo pushes her up into the gap of the grate Mikey had jumped down into. And she is in front of her cut rate and crumbling apartment building, in the orange sodium glow of the pre-dawn city, clutching the tea-stained afghan of things that were not supposed to exist.

She had made her way, somehow, up the stairs and into her room, collapsing fully clothed into her unmade bed. She hated sleeping, and often avoided it whenever possible. Those dreams she'd have made it uncomfortable. Since the middle of high school, she had been beset by staticky, incomprehensible night terrors. The closest approximation she'd been able to come up with to appease her parents and psychologist was that of listening to a badly recorded song backwards without knowing it. You could feel the inverse wrongness of what you were experiencing. There were no reoccurring images, no identifying motifs in these subconscious visitations, save a vague but overpowering sense of immense and crippling power. Which made no sense to a girl who considered herself powerless.

She woke up to a grey room and the sound of Samson's snufflings and went about her usual routine. Gathering up her bathroom essentials, trudging down to the shared bathroom at the end of the wet cardboard-coloured hall, eating cold cereal from the box, and catching the bus to school under a sky as grey as the underbelly of an ancient whale. On the bus, she plunged her hand into the pocket of her windbreaker, finding instead of the Laundromat money she'd expected, a small piece of tightly folded paper. She examined it, seeing that it was unlined, the kind of cheap brown newsprint they frown on in intermediate art classes. In precise block letters written with curiously brown ink was a message, which read:

MENTION OUR MEETING TO NO ONE. THERE ARE THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TARGETING US WITH MALICIOUS INTENT. FOR YOUR SAFETY, KEEP YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO YOURSELF. I'M SORRY TO BRING YOU INTO THIS –L.

Her mouth dropped wide open and she stuffed the little scrap of warning into her inside pocket, zippering it up. Locking the threat of unknown invasion away as well, she put her mind onto her morning courses, and what to have for lunch.

The passenger behind her flipped the unread page of their newspaper to another page they would not read. They were thinking as well, although not about lunch. Not at all.


	4. 4: Life Without

**4**

**Life Without**

The day was one of those days that seemed to move at the pace of an elderly sea slug, and by the end of it Laurel was curiously drained. Her thoughts rested on her interrupted night previous, and she could only concentrate on her classes with tremendous effort. Stopping home for a minute, she headed to the Laundromat, throwing the afghan in with her socks and sweaters. She flipped through a dog-eared copy of _The Watchmen_, musing on _The Tick_'s superior storyline, occasionally watching the tall, onyx black haired man racking up a stupendous score on the ancient _Castlevania _game in the corner, provided by the owners as another way to put your change to use. He played with curious fervour, making it to the Grim Reaper final boss on only a few coins. The timer on her dryer buzzed fuzzily and she shrugged, turning down the corner of her current page, and scooping her clothes, and the now clean blanket into a garbage bag that she slung over her shoulder, The man looked up, watching her retreating outline in the glass door, his pixelized hero abandoned for less than a minute, beheaded noisily by his grim and gloating opponent.

The night went curiously well, Laurel finished her assigned reading quickly, and she somehow managed to enjoy a supper of cold rice and lukewarm tea. She fed and watered Samson, patting his soft little belly, stroking his prickles in just the right way, making his back legs wiggle. She smiled wanly in bed that night, falling to sleep and barely dreaming. In the night darkened room, things moved. But she did not hear them.

Upon waking, the room was curiously silent. Laurel did not hear Samson's morning snuffling nor the whisper of his feet on pine shavings. She cracked her eyes open, still heavy with sleep, and looked over to his cage in the corner. It was empty, and the grated door hung unsteadily on one hinge. She rose up on her elbows, looking around for her little escape artist and saw something hanging from the light fixture near the door.

It is hard to describe seeing the corpse of a beloved friend and companion. Does it fill one with cold creeping desolation, almost physical pain, or horrific, gaping emptiness? It's hard to say. But Laurel could say if she was asked and felt like answering.

Before her eyes, she saw a common garden hedgehog hanging by its tiny neck from the bare bulb in her aged white ceiling. He was slit from throat to tail, his minute intestines shining in the morning light, a puddle of warm blood on the linoleum floor below. Laurel could not speak. Her eyes bulged wide, and her head fell into her arms, blocking out what she could not accept.

Behind the gently swinging corpse scrawled in its blood on the door was a message.

CONTINUE WITH THE TURTLES AND YOU WILL BE NEXT.

It may be cliché but when one receives such a warning, cliché ceases to be an important matter.


	5. 5: Life In The Company Of Women

**5**

**Life In the Company Of Women**

In the cheerlessly orange diner, that clear and starry night, Laurel tried to remember what had happened that day. It was like walking out of a deep cave. Had anything that she remembered even happened?

She wore the orange and brown polyester uniform, her brown hair pinned back recklessly, but she could not recall having gotten dressed or even moved from her bed that morning. But evidently she had, because here she was, serving people politely, but with the zeal of a somnambulist. Thankfully, when she worked the midnight shift at a 24-hour greasy spoon, she did not really need to be aware of her surroundings.

There was only the chef, a silent surly man of great girth, and another girl, blond with dark eyebrows and a determined smirk, working that night. Which made it easier for Laurel to avoid any human contact and sink into the mire that her only confidant's demise had created. Easier, until her co-worker decided to meddle that is.

Jen watched the quiet brunette, as she counted the cash from that night. It was about 1:00 am and Laurel was picking up abandoned coffee cups and forlorn forks, as the chef scraped the grill with the grating screech of metal on metal. Laurel looked abandoned and forlorn herself, and Jen wondered, as she had every time she worked a shift with the girl. Always quiet, polite and seldom smiling, Laurel never discussed her home life, or said much other than "We're out of quarters," or "I'll go get some more ketchup" and other such dinerly things. And today, there had been such a slump to her shoulders, such a scuffle in her small feet that Jen was concerned, and when motivated by any strong emotion, Jen Lowds' last name suited her very well indeed.

Laurel picked up the broom near the cash and Jen looked up, "I know you're not all right, you know. Want to talk about it?" And for some reason, Laurel _did _want to talk about it, not to any one else, but to Jen, with her strange flouncy boy/girl hair and her no bullshit way of putting things, she would. And she did. In about as many words as you have read here, keeping a low voice, and ignoring any exclamations Jen made, Laurel told her all about the turtles and Samson. As she told the part of story concerning her discovery of her hedgehog, she began to cry quietly as she swept the floor, talking through her tears about the loss of the day and her fear of returning home to a blood spattered door and what lay behind it.

Jen, without thinking of anything else, as usual, suggested that Laurel stay at her apartment near the university. The brunette nodded, unsmiling and they closed up the diner together, leaving the door unlocked for the chef to let himself out.

"So," Jen asked loudly, turning her key in the lock, and forcing the door open with her hip, "What do you want for breakfast? It _is_ morning after all!" She grinned at Laurel's sober face. "Err, um well, maybe I should tell Aqua we're home. Auk! I brought a friend." She dropped her purse near the darkly wooden table in the entrance, covered in mosaic tiles and strangely curving statuary. "Come in, Laurel. Please don't be too uptight, things'll get better. Promise." She smiled again, crinkling the corners of her brown eyes, and baring bright, occasionally crooked teeth. Her houseguest managed to smile back, looking around at the place where she'd be sleeping. She stood in a tiny entranceway, only about a square foot wide that opened into a small kitchen lit only with the blue starlight-like glow of a small fluorescent light mounted under the cupboard. Beyond that was smaller room, covered in blankets, wall hangings and pillows, with a low table dominating its centre. The whole apartment was furnished in antiques of oriental origin, and seemed much more mature than its owner.

From the room at the back, came a girl Laurel's own age, in a blue furry bathrobe. Her face was round and her hair was green, cut closely to the scalp in the back, about three inches long, with bangs longer than her chin in the front, parted in the middle." Morning," She said only vaguely sleepily, "I'm Aqua Aquataine." Seeing Laurel's look, she continued, "My parent's were hippies with a sense of humour. What can you do?" She shrugged. " Mind if I speak to Jen for a second?" She grabbed the blonde's arm and pulled her away into the next room, leaving Laurel standing in the entranceway. She gently closed the door behind her and looked around once more, observing all she could.

The girls returned and Jen began rummaging in the cupboards. Aqua pushed her bangs out of her azure eyes, saying, " Laurel, right? Want to come see if we can find you a place to crash?" She led the way into the next room, pushing some extra pillows off a daybed there. Laurel followed, and asked where she and Jen would be sleeping. Grinning, Aqua pushed a curtain away from the right wall, revealing a doorway and a bedroom, consumed for the most part by a large bed. "This where me and Jen usually sleep. Neat, eh? I like the eclectic, opium den look"

"You sure do." Laurel replied, gazing at the red, orange and yellow material draped ceiling and the gauzy curtains covering the wide window that looked down over the subdued nightlife of the artsy university district.

"Hey, Laurel!" Came Jen's strident voice from the kitchen, " What kind of noodles do you like?"

They sat at the low table eating delicious hot flat noodles, in a savoury barbecue-esque sauce. Jen drank beer while Aqua and Laurel had decided on herbal tea. Jen and Aqua sat beside each other laughing and joking without being exclusionary, and Laurel gradually surmised that they were a couple. When the food was finished, Aqua picked up the dishes, keeping Laurel and Jen from helping, by pointing out that they had been waitressing all night, and that she should have a turn. They gave up without much fight and gradually everyone began yawning too much to carry on a conversation. Laurel, cosy under a pile of a million blankets, her stomach warm and full for the first time in months almost forgot about everything that plagued her as she listened to the cars passing in the street.

(To my lovely reviewers: Thank you! I had no idea anyone was actually reading my writings. Hurrah! I will try to live up to your expectations. Love and Hugs- Telltale )


	6. 6: Life As A Brother

**6**

Life As A Brother 

Very far away from the cold steel city is a desert. In that desert there is a small conglomeration of grey buildings that look for all the world like children's toys left in a sandbox. But if these are children's toys then the children are something else indeed. Because in these buildings are things that have grown very far out of control. And when pests grow too big for men alone to deal with, the professionals are called in. Jacob Marks is one of those professionals.

"Shit!" The deep expletive echoes from the concrete walls back to his lips, and Jake reloads his gun. "Shit, shit, shit, double shit." He mutters, gloved fingers scrambling on the concrete floor for his dropped flash grenade. He grabs it, lobbing it like a football down the shadow-laced hall, hoping it will slow the thing down. A blast resounds followed by a deep bellowed groan. Jake takes off running. Knowing from experience that it was not a groan of surrender that he'd just heard but one of pain, confusion and anger.

He'd spent all his formative years playing _Doom_, _Resident Evil_, _Silent Hill_ and other assorted survival horror video games, but still, every time they drop him in one of these godforsaken places, it scares the shit right out of him.

He careens down through the maze of grey corridors, the grenade smoke stinging his eyes and nose, the bellows of the humanoid thing behind him pulsing in his ears. He hefts his gun to his shoulder, turns around, fires, and keeps running, listening for the sound of a dead abomination.

There is a sharp, pained cry and a sound like the dropping of a great weight. Jake stops short, catching his breath and slowly turns round, sighting the general area where the thing should be. He spots the body through the smoke, dust and evaporating blood, nearing it, kicking it's misshapen, exposed skull with his steel toed boot. He picks up his radio, reporting that the target has been erased.

He walks out of the concrete bunker, barely hearing the alarm that signals an air strike, pulling off his gloves and his helmet, thinking. And as the remains of humans tampering with nature go up in government-sanctioned flames, Jacob Marks anticipates a long overdue reunion with his sister, Laurel.


	7. 7: Life Overheard

A small note before we begin: Thanks a billion to PassionatePink, without your startlingly humble note, this would never have been written. I know it's going slow, but bear with me Laurel is _this _close to getting much more familiar with the Turtles, and could it be… Kasey Jones? (soon, I promise)

Second verse, same as the First: TMNT isn't mine, because then I'd be awesome.

But everything else is, including the miso-bacon.

**7**

**Life Overheard**

The sun didn't bother to ask Laurel if she'd like to sleep in that morning, and she was coerced into waking that morning by it's insistent heat on her cheek and nose. The saffron smears of its light filled Aqua and Jen's apartment without remorse, and without consideration for Laurel's late night before. She rolled over; burying her head under the duvet, hoping the sun would do the sensible thing and go back to bed.

It didn't.

But it did continue shining on the duvet, heating up the fabric and the girl there-under until she was forced to climb out of the day bed, placing both bare feet firmly on the slightly rough wood floor. Then she heard voices in the kitchen, above the sound of sizzling bacon and the clanging of Jen attempting and failing to quietly get some plates from the cupboard.

"-the truth?" Jen's resonant alto voice asked.

"Why would she lie? There's no motive." Replied Aqua's airier, springier tones.

"For attention? I dunno, maybe it's an elaborate scheme to seduce my woman away from me." Laurel could imagine the teasing smirk on Jen's mouth.

"I highly doubt that one. It wouldn't work anyhow." She paused here. Laurel thought she knew why. "She's going to have to go back home sometime, for her personal things at least."

As they spoke, Laurel patted into the miniscule kitchen, bare feet slapping on the terracotta tile. " I don't know if I can go there just yet, but I'm not lying."

Jen grinned sheepishly over an outstretched and over heaped plate of bacon, eggs, toast, and melon slices. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that stuff, " She said, giving the plate, along with a fork, to Laurel and steering her into the living room to sit at the low table. She had said it in such a way that made Laurel wonder what stuff she had missed.

The two girls had somehow managed to be completely ignorant of the fact that someone had knocked on the door as Jen explained to Laurel that the bacon wasn't actually _bacon _because Aqua was a vegetarian and didn't buy meat even if Jen rather liked meat and sometimes wanted bacon that wasn't actually mashed up bits of miso or something. Aqua answered the door.


	8. 8: Life Interesting

**8**

**Life Interesting**

Aqua answered the door, and then Jen felt that little pull in her brain that meant that things had just gotten very interesting for her girl.

Things _were_ very interesting at the front door, because there were four shadowy figures in trench coats and fedoras at the door.

But faithful reader, _you_ know whom these trench coats and fedoras belong to, don't you?

No you do not.

The figure at the head of the pack moved strangely, Aqua noticed, like something was wrong with its skeleton. It jerked, painfully, like a puppet on tangled strings. And then it's arm shot out at an quite unrealistic speed and angle.

When Jen ran into the room, it had Aqua by the throat, suspended three feet above the hard tile floor. Her head grazed the low ceiling, sending down a thin mist of plaster. Then the other ones behind it began to move. Jen didn't waste any time. Grabbing one of the strangely curving statues from the table mercifully near the door, Jen hefted it, whacked the thing in the fedora _hard_, and shouted at Laurel to stay the hell where she was if she didn't want to get painfully killed. Then as she rammed the thing in the gut with her shoulder, she reflected on the fact that adding painfully to killed might have been a little superfluous. It reacted to the blow, dropping Aqua mostly unharmed, but Jen's shoulder came away wet. She pretended not to notice, knowing this wasn't a good time to vomit, and shouted, face red, voice breaking, "Auk, do your thing now!" And then what happened is easy to explain but hard to understand. Aqua Aquataine, green haired lesbian witch, closed the door. But it wasn't just any door. It was _The Door_. Which apparently had come unhinged, left open or gods forbid, opened on purpose to let the four stinking rotting things that are better not too closely described in. Both girls suspected that the door had been opened with purpose and they both also suspected that Laurel was in some way part of it.

Because of course being involved in the war between good and evil does bring strange things to your door. But never had anything like this come without a damn good reason. Jen's money was on Laurel being the damn good reason.

After a very long, incredibly hot shower (for two, but they didn't tell Laurel that) Jen and Aqua felt a little better. After they explained what had happened to Laurel (and Jen looked closely at what exactly was on her shirt) they felt a little worse. So they felt average when they began discussing why the Servients (as Aqua identified them) had come to their door and why they had been so easy to get rid of with their house guest.

"So… you're witches?" Asked Laurel, wrapped in a blanket and still slightly jittery. "And these… things… they're what? Demons, something like that?"

"Something like that." Aqua sighed; She lit another scented candle and slumped onto the day bed beside Laurel. It was evening now and the room was filled with the scent of lavender, camomile, vanilla, ocean, aloe vera, every conceivable candle scent, but still there was a faint tinge, a subliminal afterthought of long dead flesh. "We're not really witches though, and they weren't demons. Not by a long shot." Aqua put her head in her hands. Closing doors like the one she had was a very difficult and tiresome job. Jen rubbed her shoulder softly, after bringing in and setting down a tray of coffee and tea.

"It's more like we're medieval knights that somehow got their hands on automatic weapons and they're the soldiers of the guys who had the weapons in the first place." Jen tried to explain, thinking that maybe she'd only succeeded in confusing Laurel more. But Laurel had been studying some pretty theoretical things at university recently and only nodded, and then drank some tea.

"I'm calling the guys." Aqua announced, an hour and a half later. She was sitting on the bed in their room, in a grey housecoat, her bangs pushed behind her ears (that were a little big and sticky out, to be frank) and she had a grey cordless phone in her lap.

"That's a stupid idea." Jen replied, no nonsense as always. "That's just what they want… whoever sent those stinking creeps."

"I know, but…" She sighed reaching over to her bedside table, found a familiar little brown plastic medicine bottle, twisted off its white cap and said "We don't have the means to protect her like those guys do." With the two green pills held to her mouth.

Jen gently took her wrist and slipped the pills out of her pale fingers, "You don't need those, and we don't need the guys."

"Yes I do, Jennifer. You don't understand…" She tried to go for the bottle or the phone in her lap, but couldn't decide which was more important and just rest her head in the crook of Jen's shoulder, "I'm so tired," She muttered.

Jen smoothed down Aqua's hair tenderly saying, "I know, I know. The Door is a hard thing to shut once it's open."

"Minds are like that too…"Aqua murmured before she fell asleep in Jen's lap.

With a glance at the girl she loved asleep on her bed, and a long look at the girl she barely knew asleep on her day bed, Jennifer Louds picked up the phone in the kitchen and speed-dialled the number saved under key #4.


	9. 9: Life Between Telephones

**9**

**Life Between Telephones**

There is a telephone booth on the corner Smyth and Canterbury, well worn by time, the elements and graffitists.

The pay phone inside is used as often as any other phone booth on the corner of an intersection on the east end of this cold city. There is something that makes this pay phone particularly convenient for certain residents of this area; after all, real estate is all about _location, location, location_. It is directly beside an open metal grate that runs into the mazes of underground pipe beneath the city's concrete and steel. These mazes of pipe have very good acoustics. Sometimes the pay phone rings.

Like tonight for example. It rings three times then stops for thirty seconds (exactly, as if someone had timed it) and then rings again this time, not stopping. And deep in the cellars of the city, someone hears it.

"Yo, Leo! Yer phone's ringing!" The same someone yelled, taking a disturbingly large bite of tremendously cheesy pizza.

Not someone likely to answer it, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?

The person most likely to answer it was in the middle of a training spar against his red-bandanna-ed brother. They had both been training almost incessantly, after Laurel had come and gone, knowing without really knowing how that something big was soon to happen.

Leonardo looked up quickly as Mikey bellowed for him from the sofa in front of the TV. Raphael took his distraction in stride, swinging the light stick they used for sparring directly at his brother's dark green head. Leo ducked quickly and thrust back with his own sparring stick, hitting Raphe's stomach squarely and then running toward a back exit of the main room.

Back in the kitchen of an apartment in the artsy university district, Jen heaved a huge relieved sigh as the phone was answered with: "Kame Exterminators, You got problems we got solutions."

She replied, "I think you've dealt with this type before. A young specimen, female, shy. I need you to take her off our hands, she brought too much attention." She disliked speaking so formally and coldly, but she couldn't take the chance that anyone more than Leo was listening.

"Alright," The voice on the other end answered back, "We'll be there shortly. It's urgent?"

"Very much so." Said Jen before she hung up.

Maybe twenty minutes later, a quartet of trench coats and three-fingered hands arrived at the apartment door. "You're sure this is the right idea?" Donnatello asked, after hearing about the coincidences that had brought Laurel back into the brother's lives. "I, mean that whole dire warning written in the blood of her most cherished companion thing? We're just going to ignore that?"

"She can't live here any more, obviously, with the Servients showing up." Leonardo parried. Jen made noises of agreement, and neither Mikey nor Raphael seemed particularly opposed to the plan.

"I'm just going to be the only voice of reason again aren't I?" He sighed, resigned.

"Aren't you always, bro? Why act surprised all the time?" Mikey patted him on the shoulder, reassuringly.

"It adds a semblance of reality to most situations. And I for one know we could all handle a little more reality." He replied, getting ready to meet Laurel again, in a different context: housemate.


	10. 10: Life in Motion

**10**

**Life in Motion**

One often assumes that given a certain familiarity, almost any place on the face of the earth can begin to feel like home, or at the very least homey. But despite the frequency with which he was in one, airports were one of the few places that Jacob Marks never felt at home in. He had no problem with the many extremely strange and threatening situations and places he had been in over his years with the Service (although at the time he was nearly always functioning on an extreme combination of adrenaline, duty and blinding fear) but he was never so fundamentally _jittery _in them as he was in an airport. Too many people, too many distracting noises, and not enough cover area in the case of an enemy assault (assuming that he was ever assaulted while waiting for his baggage). So as he arrived in the city via a private helicopter, he passed over going through the terminal and the vicissitudes of airport security, and immediately going to the silver, vaguely sporty, luxury car that awaited him in the parking lot. He discovered its keys in the pocket of his canvas jacket, a part of the civilian clothes he had been given en route to change into. The Service was dependable like that, always doing that little extra, the kind of things that separate a good employer from a great one. The short life expectancy of their employees had something to do with the luxe treatment they got, but Jacob didn't mind, He'd been with them since he graduated high school six years ago and didn't plan on kicking the bucket any time soon.

With that thought, he and his shiny new car sped down the rural road away from the airport, anxious to see his sister.

Laurel, meanwhile was underground. Traveling away from the artsy district to somewhere much nearer to where she had lived these past two years, the shapes around her moved in and out of the shadows cast by lamplight filtered through grates and partially open manhole covers. The brick walled and moss covered tunnels curved on into the half-light and she had the sensation of traveling deep into the heart of myth, like they were going to come upon a gate guarded by a three-headed dog at any moment.

They didn't though, that sort of thing doesn't happen in the real world.

They turned a corner presently and Leonardo asked her, "Do you have the list?" She nodded and handed it to him, he in turn handed it to Donatello and Raphael who climbed up a few metal bars to the street and took off. Soon, Laurel, Michelangelo, and Leonardo were being greeted by Master Splinter who showed her to a small corner of the large room that had been curtained off. There was a bed, a lamp and a small bookshelf inside, taking up almost all the floor space. Laurel turned to the old rat, a quizzical look on her face.

"It is not much… but this is the best we could do." He smiled, hopefully.

She nodded, trying to look grateful, "Thank you,"

He bowed and turned away, talking to Leonardo quietly as he walked toward him.

"Hey, Laurel!" Mikey called to her, clambering down a few shallow steps from where the television stood, "You want some pizza or somethin'? We got some left from last night that's still pretty good." Laurel couldn't help but allow a small smile to creep into her heart. She shook her head. "Awww, whatever you say. More for me!" He declared, grabbing one of the grease-stained cardboard boxes that littered this side of the underground room. She wagered a guess that the T.V., couch and surrounding area were Michelangelo's kingdom. "Leo and Raph'll probably bring some fresh slices, when they get back with your stuff." He continued.

"Okay."Laurel replied, getting a flash of blood and cold morning air in her mind, "I'm just going to lie down now…" Mikey only nodded, intent on the cartoon that flashed on the screen before him. She walked into her new room, pulling the blanket that was her curtained door over the rough rope that suspended the partitions around her new bed, and her empty bookcase. She laid there, lamp still on, on top of the blankets, trying to hold the melancholy at bay.


End file.
